by Neil Bauman, Ph.D. A lady explained, I have tinnitus most of the time—day and night. It nearly drives me mad as I have an irregular heart beat, once going into fibrillation. I hear every heartbeat which scares me. I guess I am hearing it as the carotid artery is close to my ears. This […]
Ear Problems
Pycnogenol as a Treatment for Tinnitus
by Neil Bauman, Ph.D. A lady asked, Is an extract of pine bark (pycnogenol) still of interest in treating tinnitus? You are referring to an article that came out 3 years ago on October 13, 2010 entitled, “Pycnogenol effective in relieving tinnitus symptoms: Study“. In case you aren’t familiar with it, pycnogenol (pik-NAH-jen-all) is a […]
Loud Breath Sounds Indicates Patulous Eustachian Tubes
by Neil Bauman, Ph.D. A mother-to-be wrote, After stumbling across your website today, I was wondering if you could give me some advice. Three years ago I perforated my eardrum free diving. This wasn’t picked up until 9 months after the incident, and the ENT suggested that I would need a graft put over the […]
Mix Your Own Environmental Sounds to Sooth Your Tinnitus
by Neil Bauman, Ph.D. The American Tinnitus Association (ATA) has a cool Tinnitus Sound Masking Library on their website. (Note: You have to be an ATA member and log in to the “Members Area” in order to access this webpage.) This is the ideal way to make your own environmental background files so you can […]
Eardrum Thickens and Other Ear Changes as We Age
by Neil Bauman, Ph.D. A man asked, Does the thickness of the eardrum change with age? If it does, then a person’s hearing could be affected by vibrational changes resulting from membrane thickness variations. Do you have any information on this? I have not found a lot of hard data on this, but the short […]
Tinnitus and Cochlear Implants
by Neil Bauman, Ph.D. A daughter wrote, I enjoy reading your newsletter because my dad cannot hear. He had a cochlear implant last year. He also has loud tinnitus, which we hoped the CI would help. Unfortunately, it didn’t, and his doctor hasn’t been able to help. He’s 85 and sometimes he says it’s unbearable. […]